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So you have decided to apply for a passport for your newborn? Many of you would agree that it’s quite challenging to take good shots of such young babies. This is because newborns often fall asleep during a passport photography session. Though getting a passport photo of your child can be a tiresome job, but you won’t be able to resist smiling when you recollect these small but important moments of his childhood. Therefore, if you want to succeed in getting a beautiful picture of your child, you should consider each step of getting a good passport photo for your child as a step towards attaining his true identification in this world.

1)Ensure that the child has got a good amount of sleep before you take him for a passport photo session. The baby must be in good mood with his eyes open.

2)The background of the passport photo should be white. Therefore, you should dress up the baby in contrasting color, which doesn’t blend much with the background color.

3)Keep the copy of your baby’s birth certificate and his social security card handy.

4)Babies may get cranky during passport photo session, so you should immediately take a break. Feed the baby if he is hungry, but you can use a bright colored toy to ensure he doesn’t fall asleep.

5)If the baby is too young to hold his head straight, you can make him lie on a white cardboard and shoot a nice passport photo. You can also put the child in his car seat and put a white towel around him and then take the passport photo.

6)Always check the passport rules set by government authority, it would help you take the desired shot without wasting much of your time and keeping the child calm.

7)Parents should not try to support the child by putting their hand or holding the child from the back side.

8)Don’t put any toys or dummies to console the child, which are visible through camera.

9)The passport photograph of your child should look identical and should be printed on a low-gloss, plain white paper.

10)The passport photo of your child should be in sharp focus and should be devoid of any unwanted shadow at the background.

Passport rules have changed all over the globe in past few years, and now children and infants in the United States as well as in many other countries need to have seprate passports. However, it is not easy to take passport photos of the infants. Parents and photographers face great difficulty in keeping their floppy-headed infants looking straight at the camera. Moreover, keeping the children calm during this entire process is another challenge to ensure an acceptable passport photo.

· Be taken when the baby is awake · Have the baby looking directly into the camera
· Have his or her mouth closed with no pacifier
· Have baby’s face visible without any other object in view, not even parents’s hands to support him
· Never fall on his face or cover his eyes
· Be devoid of any shadows from behind
· Not have the baby looking away from the camera
· Not have his or her face covered While the passport photo of the kid should be compliant with passport rules set by the government authorities, it is quite challenging to make your baby and lens work in coordination.

If you are unsure how your baby would respond during passport photo session, you can try this infant photography technique. This technique would surely help you get best passport photo of your child. Put a white piece of cardboard on the bed or the floor, and make your child lie down on it. The parents of the child must stand beside the photographer and try to keep the baby engaged during passport photo session. This way, your child can be more attentive, and would not also fall asleep. After few trials, you can expect to get a reasonable passport photo of your child.

While applying for passports or visas, Germans have been asked to maintain serious expressions on their face. This is done to allow biometric scanners pick right facial features of the passport holders. Besides, the authorities have been directed to accept only those photos for passports, which are taken from the front to allow the “most natural facial expressions possible.”

These security measures have been taken after September, 2001 attacks to consolidate the security network in Germany as well as around the world. The German Interior Minister Otto Schily says that the facial identification systems can only match the natural features of a person with his or her mouth closed. The United States, Canada, and Britain have already followed these specifications and have already started issuing Biometric passports.

German officials recently exhibited the new passports based on these guidelines. The officials accept that such passport photos would be very tough to manipulate. From March 2007, the German passports have also been carrying two scanned fingerprints stored on a chip.

Remember, U.S. passport photo specifications are different from that of German passport photos. And, not many photographers in Germany are familiar with these specifications. Therefore, you must take a print out of these requirements for U.S. Passports and explain them to your photographer.

While posing for your passport photo, you should always ask for a complete frontal view of your face. Look directly into the camera and maintain neutral expressions without any smile on your face. Never use the photos that have reflections on the face or with red eyes. The background of the passport photo should be light-colored so as to provide adequate contrast to the face and your hair. The passport photo must be printed on a high-quality paper with around 600 dpi resolution sans any marks or stains on it.

Many countries have different requirements for passport photos of babies and children under a certain age. For example, the official specification of the UK's Identity and Passport Service (IPS) lists the following requirements for children:

Photographs of children five years and under must show a clear image that is a true likeness of the child. Because young children can be difficult to photograph, children aged five and under do not need to have a neutral expression. We will also accept glare on glasses or pictures with their head at an angle. Also, children aged five and under do not need to look directly at the camera.

Babies under one year do not need to have their eyes open. All other standards must be met. If the baby's head needs to be supported, it is important that your supporting hand cannot be seen. To support the baby's head, you should hold your hand behind the baby's head so that it cannot be seen int he photograph.

Photographs for all children aged six and over must meet the full standards set out above, with the following exception. That is, photographs of children under 11 may show a head size between 21mm and 34mm high, instead of the adult requirement of 29mm to 34mm high.

ePassportPhoto.com helps you create passport photos for babies and children in the following ways:

When you select a specific photo format on the front page, be sure to specify "Passport – under 11" if your child is under 11 years old. When you select this option, the system will adjust the requirements to make it easier for you to make the selection in the second step of the wizard.

Unlike passport photo booths and photo shops, you can take as many pictures as you want with your digital camera. For example, your partner can support the baby's head while you take the picture, and you can try several times until you get it right. In fact, some people have used this site with photos that were taken with the baby lying down on a white surface. Interesting…